


Comfortably Numb

by falsteloj



Category: Ashes to Ashes
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-01
Updated: 2012-12-01
Packaged: 2017-11-19 23:13:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/578675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falsteloj/pseuds/falsteloj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alex reflects on what's real and what isn't. Femslash12 fic for Morganasarmy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Comfortably Numb

When Alex tells Gene that there are no friends clogging up her address book, the admission doesn’t bother her. At least it doesn’t hurt like it might have years ago - like it might have now, she supposes - when she never seemed able to do anything right, and the only thing better than being liked by all the other girls would have been to have her mother’s undivided attention.

She’s had it now, if only for a few scant moments, and she doesn’t look too closely at what it says about her state of mind, or her stability, and instead chooses to feel satisfied that she would give it all back for a single second with Molly.

Perhaps it really is something impossible to understand until you have had children, like she used to read in terrible waiting room magazines, or perhaps it’s because she’s drank so much bad wine her mouth doesn’t feel quite her own anymore. Either way she sticks with her attempt to explain it to Shaz, though she isn’t so drunk as to be unable to interpret the confusion on the other woman’s face.

“I think you ought to get some sleep, M’am,” Shaz says eventually, when Alex is struggling to keep her eyes open.

“Alex,” she corrects, flinging an arm out in emphasis. It connects with the half full glass on the coffee table, and Alex can hear the smile in Shaz’ voice when she says,

“I think you ought to get some sleep, _Alex_.”

* * *

The next time Shaz is in her flat, sat on her sofa, Alex is less drunk. But only marginally.

“I like the way you don’t care what anyone else thinks,” Shaz says, just as Alex drains her wine glass, and it’s not overly surprising to find that she’s lost the thread of the conversation. Alex likes what she’s hearing though, recognising it for earnest praise though the words alone could be read far less flatteringly.

“It can’t be easy for you,” Alex hears herself saying, because brain and mouth aren’t quite working in synch yet. “Doing a man’s job,” she hooks the fingers of one hand in the air, the other busy plunking her now empty glass down on the coffee table, “in 1981, surrounded by Neanderthals.”

“Easier than it was for you, I bet,” Shaz says in answer. “You’re the Detective Inspector.”

Alex snorts, because it’s true, and because it feels like her grip on what she is and what she isn’t is growing ever more tenuous. The voices, and the delusions, and the drinking. They’re all chipping away at it. Aloud she says,

“I’m just running amok with my subconscious, but you’re doing it the hard way. My mind’s chosen you as the role model, Shaz.”

Shaz flushes easily - prettily - even as her brow furrows in confusion, and Alex thinks of girls who did like her, at college, and at university, and later still when her marriage was falling apart around her.

“Sometimes you say the strangest things, M’a - Alex,” Shaz tells her with a shake of her head. This time it’s Alex who smiles, broadly, and says,

“Now you’re definitely not the first person to say that to me.”

* * *

The third time Alex is alone in her flat with Shaz she’s almost sober, and it’s Shaz who is having trouble standing upright and keeping her conversation comprehensible.

“You’re drunk,” she says, quite reasonably, and Shaz laughs and flops down onto her once fashionable sofa, pulling Alex with her.

“I don’t feel it,” Shaz tells her, low and confessional. Alex supposes that it’s not impossible; who’s to say what effect cheap booze has on an imaginary construct? So she doesn’t feel guilty uncorking one of the bottles that came ready stocked in the place she can’t bring herself to call home.

Shaz presses closer and closer beside her, and Alex welcomes it as enthusiastically as she welcomes the feeling of being comfortably numb. She remembers being young, not knowing yet wanting to learn, and thinks that if Shaz were real, and it were the right time frame, it would be nice to talk and compare notes about it.

But Shaz isn’t, and _it_ isn’t, and when Shaz presses closer still, so that her thigh tingles and her breath hitches, there is no reason to practice restraint, or self-control, or willpower, because nothing she does here seems to make the slightest difference anyway.

It’s sweeter than she remembers, almost sickly sweet, like the last few drops of liquid staining the bottom of her wine glass. Then there’s the flare of something darker underneath, something promising, and Alex lets her hands wander greedily, and wonders what Gene and the rest of them would make of it, if they could see what they were doing.

And then she doesn’t care what any of them think about her, because it was good when Shaz allowed her caresses, breathless, but it’s better when Shaz takes control, kisses her with real passion, like she’s been waiting and waiting for this very moment. Shaz’s hands stroke fire down her back and across her chest, and Alex pushes against her, and touches careful and tentative until she’s sure, and then the reactions are so obvious her own body burns in sympathy.

Shaz is heavy and clingy in the aftermath, and for once Alex doesn’t mind, because none of its real, so none of it can mean anything. She wouldn’t want it to anyway, probably. It’s hard to make a decision so she doesn’t bother.

“I can’t believe that just happened,” Shaz whispers to her, more asleep than awake, and Alex settles for smiling at the ceiling because, by this point, believing doesn’t come into it. The world seems stranger than usual, more surreal and yet somehow more familiar. It’s the drink, she thinks. The tiredness.

She falls asleep on the sofa, though the position is uncomfortable, thinking that of all of them she most wishes that Shaz were the one who could have a real life, because Shaz is her favourite imaginary construct.

**Author's Note:**

> As ever, feel free to chat / hit me with prompts over on Tumblr [@serenwib](http://serenwib.tumblr.com/) or Twitter [@falsteloj](https://twitter.com/falsteloj). :)


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